Had enough yet

[Lee Chowaniec]

It's time to renounce the angry rhetoric and stop the blame game.

It is time to renounce the hateful rhetoric as the titled media report stated. The report was spot on except for its slant in focusing the blame primarily on Trump, Vance, and their supporters.

Stated in the media report:And what do you expect when you hear Donald Trump call his opponents "vermin" and "the real threat" that he has pledged to "root out"?

What do you call it when he accuses Democrats of staging a "coup" against Joe Biden, what does he mean when he says, "we have to save our country, we can't play games"?

Who calls the opposing party "Marxist" and the "enemy from within" that poses a more pernicious threat to America's well-being than foreign enemies?

Trump has proposed that his opponents be subject to military tribunals for treason, urged his supporters to "go after" the New York attorney general and said that Democrats are destroying the country.

A New York Post report presents another side of the story:

Who are these reasonable Trump haters, you may ask?

Let’s begin with the sitting president of the United States, Joe Biden, whose reason may be clouded by the passage of time but whose opinions on the subject are sharp enough. According to Biden, Trump must be considered, if not exactly armed, then “dangerous,” as the leader of “an extremist movement that does not share the basic beliefs of our democracy.” Trumpism is an “assault on democracy,” “a threat to our democracy” — in short, “semi-fascism,” the president has declared.

“Trump is a danger to our troops, our security, and our democracy,” Harris tells us. The former president, Harris has said, masterminded “the worst attack on democracy since the Civil War.”

David Plouffe, who managed Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign: “It is not enough to beat Trump. He must be destroyed thoroughly. His kind must not be allowed to rise again.”

Democratic Congressman Dan Goldman of New York: “It is unquestionable that [Trump] cannot see public office again. He is not only unfit, but also destructive of our democracy, and he has to be eliminated.”

Hilary Clinton, who in her day portrayed Trump as the headman of a ragged band of “deplorables” — “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, you name it.” More recently, Clinton warned the non-deplorable portion of the population that a Trump victory in November “would be the end of our country as we know it.”

A New York Times headline: “Trump’s dire words raise new fears about his authoritarian bent.”

The Economist: “Donald Trump poses the greatest danger to the world in 2024.”

The Guardian: “A second Trump term will be far more autocratic than the first.”

Politico: “Trump is an authoritarian. So are millions of Americans.”

Comment

The left blames Donald Trump and blasts the GOP after second assassination attempt Trump is worse than the war in Ukraine, the October 7 atrocity, the possibility of nuclear war with China over Taiwan or with Iran over Israel — worse than inflation, crime, runaway immigration — the worst, most annihilating and head-bursting authoritarian horror that the news media, in their limited imagination, can apparently conceive.

It is time for both sides to stop the hateful rhetoric – the lying, the gaslighting, the false promises. Like that’s ever going to happen.

We are so screwed!

[Lee Chowaniec]

SSA cost of living adjustment - COLA

If everything goes as expected, Social Security recipients should receive a 2.5% increase in next year's cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA.

That number may be disappointing in itself, even more so if Social Security Administration (SSA) automatically deducts Medicare Part B premiums from beneficiaries' checks if they're enrolled in the government-sponsored health insurance program.

The Medicare Board of Trustees estimates an increase in the monthly Part B premium for most households from $174.70 to $185.00. That's a 5.9% increase in costs, much more than the 2.5% estimated COLA.

The average Social Security beneficiary currently receives $1,872 in monthly retirement benefits. A 2.5% increase to that average is $46.80 per month, but approximately $10.30 of that will go toward paying higher Medicare premiums. As a result, the average beneficiary will only receive a boost of about 2.2% to their current checks.

Good luck fellow retirees. And to think we are being told that we are better off today than four years ago.

[Lee Chowaniec]

Hey retirees: What’s in it for us?

Both presidential candidates are buying votes with promises; and, if they keep those promises, it will be inflationary.

In an op-ed written in the Wall Street Journal, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen declared the U.S. is on the right economic path and touted the policies implemented in the Biden administration over the last three and a half years. Yellen pointed out that inflation has come down significantly from its peak while the U.S. unemployment rate remains at a near historic low. She also argued economic growth has been strong.

The op-ed expressed Yellen's support for keeping Democrats in the White House as the presidential election looms November 5 while eluding to Donald Trump economic proposals including a blanket 10 percent tariff on goods coming into the U.S. Trump has pushed for the extension of the tax cuts passed during his first term in office which are set to expire at the end of next year. He has also proposed ending taxes on tips, social security, and overtime.

'Our economic strategy has helped America weather hard events, from a global pandemic to the biggest war in Europe since World War II, and build toward the future,' Yellen wrote. 'Our administration is committed to sustaining and building on our progress.'

Harris’ Opportunity Economy

Harris has called for a series of economic policies ranging from expanding the Child Tax Credit as was done temporarily under the American Rescue Plan to giving $25,000 down payments for first time homebuyers and a controversial plan to ban price gouging to tackling higher grocery costs.

The vice president has called for tax increases on the biggest corporations and wealthiest Americans to help pay for her policy proposals.

As for Harris’ “opportunity economy,” here’s an overview of what it would mean for the average American and retirees:

Expansion of the child tax credit:
Expanded earned income tax credit
Reduced healthcare costs
Lower prescription medication costs
Greater support for small businesses
Tax credit for small businesses
More affordable housing

While Harris’ “opportunity economy” doesn’t appear to directly help retirees in that many ways, there are a few areas where it could actually hurt them financially. Higher inflation could eat away at the value of the dollar. Although most of these proposed changes are geared toward working individuals, they still likely would impact retirees — even if they don’t benefit from them.

All these programs would add up to quite a government expense. To the extent that they add to budget deficits and feed inflation, retirees would suffer — and disproportionately so, because many are on fixed incomes.

Like almost everyone else, retirees very likely would see an increased cost of living. Depending on just how taxes change based on Harris’ proposal, this could lead to greater financial hardship for those struggling to get by.

Comment

As of February 2024, around 67 million people receive Social Security benefits.

Retired Workers

51. 2 million people received an average monthly benefit of $1,918 in June 2024.

Disabled Workers

7.2 million people received an average monthly benefit of $1,538 in June 2024.

Survivors

5.8 million people received an average monthly benefit of $1,508 in June 2024.

[mark blazejewski]

What's this all about?

No more Special Elections for vacancies in the Congress?

If the linked article is correct, the governing state power(s) are going to pick successors from previously drawn-up lists of elitist lap dogs, and to me, that eerily echoes the process by which President Biden was removed from the Democratic ticket on July 21, 2024, and replaced with the unelected Kamala Harris:

"Under the suggested amendment, lawmakers would submit a list of five names of people from their own party to the governor as potential replacements in the event of a mass casualty event. The governor would then choose a name from that list as an immediate interim appointment."

Suggested 28th Amendment Focuses on a Terror Attack

Lawmakers say it must be easier to quickly fill 100 or more House vacancies


By John Johnson, Newser Staff
Posted Sep 23, 2024 1:56 PM CDT

Reference: https://www.newser.com/story/356725/...EM0B6yp8z6SxqA

In the 237 years of the Constitutional Republic, America and its government has always been vulnerable to attack by both foreign and domestic attack.

Bear in mind, the nation has experienced seven major wars, the September 11, 2001 attacks, four Presidential assassinations, six well-known attempted Presidential assassinations, some significant civil unrest and a couple of pandemics since 1787.

Also, the House of Representatives itself was attacked in 1954, and to lesser extents, a number of times since.

Why the urgency now?

Do the Deep State, Neocon powers-that-be know something that we don't?

Nah, nothing to see here, move along silly people.

[Lee Chowaniec]

Harris and Walz: Much to be concerned about

Harris is surging in the polls. Unlike Trump she is likeable, fun, middleclass and will solve all the issues she helped create. How could independents not be motivated to vote for her and not the vile one? If there is one thing stopping anyone from voting for the Harris-Walz team is that everyone should feel uncomfortable voting for the team not knowing their contradictory values vs. policy positions and receiving no clarification. And or moral clarity.

The following report well defines why voters will be hesitant to cast ballots for the two.

Harris and Walz run from interviews because their values are scary
Washington Examiner

The problem with the Harris-Walz ticket’s cowardly ducking of media questions, all while Vice President Kamala Harris has repeatedly said her “values have not changed,” is that her values run counter to the American tradition.

Indeed, her values and Walz’s values together are frightening.

Before going any further, perhaps this disclaimer is important: I was an original Never Trumper and remain one to this day, so this is not part of some “let’s elect Trump again” agenda. This is just an equal-opportunity insistence that presidential candidates owe clarity to voters and that standards and principles be applied equally to all sides.

Voters should feel extremely insulted by the Harris-Walz game of “hide” while the liberal media refuse to “seek.” Never in the electronic media age has a major party put forth a nominee who never had to work for the nomination and then refused to take serious media questions, all while her campaign aides repeatedly say, without explanation, that she has abandoned a boatload of her earlier policy choices. Worse, when she is given chances to explain the shifts, she not only doesn’t reveal her thinking but says her values haven’t changed — an obvious ploy to take both sides of issues. If voters like her old values, she still has them! If voters don’t like her old positions based on those values, she has new ones!

Harris may as well be selling beachfront property that is on a mountaintop, a vegan diet with the best ribeye steaks available, and a purple evening gown in camouflage colors for a deer-hunting trip. And the liberal media not only refuse to question these obvious contradictions but, as my colleague Byron York noted, claim that those who do want answers are the ones who lack “real moral clarity.”

For someone asking to be the leader of the free world, it is virtually obscene both for her to duck and dodge this way and for the media to cheer on her ducks and dodges.

All we can do, then, is take her at her word. No matter what “position” her campaign now claims Harris has, or Walz has, on fracking, mandatory gun buybacks, the $50 trillion-plus “Green New Deal,” or all her other complete policy reversals, nobody with her original and still unchanged “values” should be president.

If your “values” ever, ever told you that the government should be able to force you to sell your guns to it while banning all handguns, and those values haven’t changed, your values run directly counter to the self-defense principle embedded in the Second Amendment.

Much worse are her values and those of Walz, then and now, related to First Amendment speech protections. In one case in which she trampled First Amendment rights in contradiction of a hard-fought victory by the NAACP (yes, she is so extreme that she went far to the left of a landmark victory by the civil rights organization), the Supreme Court shot her down, hugely. She also called on social media companies to censor political opponents’ speech, going much further even than left-wing icon Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA). Meanwhile, Walz actually bragged that he signed a law he said can make employers “go to jail now” if they discuss “religious or political matters” at mandatory meetings.

Harris is awful on other elements of the Bill of Rights, too, such as the rights of criminal defendants and important safeguards for fair trials. The Los Angeles Times reported “an epidemic of prosecutorial misconduct” on her watch, and she had a terrible habit of refusing to overturn obviously wrongful convictions.

Harris’s support for the Green New Deal was the wrong value not just on the $50 trillion cost but on the dangerous scope of government command-and-control. Her embrace of Medicare for All put her on a side that would have been not just economically disastrous but surely would have led to rationing and a massive hindrance to the development of life-saving drugs.

Meanwhile, as I’ve noted previously, Walz has signed legislation whereby his state would initially side against parents who object to their children’s gender “transitions” and also signed a bill that removed from state law a requirement that doctors try to save the lives of babies born alive, breathing the air of day, after botched abortions.

On these issues and so much else, the values of Harris and Walz were, are, and should be anathema to most people. Those values themselves, no less than the candidates’ refusal to take questions on them, bode ill for constitutional governance.

[mark blazejewski]

Until today, this was Russian Nuclear Doctrine:

(1) Instances when there would be “reliable information” about the launch of ballistic missiles against Russia and/or its allies. (Launch On Warning.)

(2) The use of nuclear, biological, chemical or other WMD.

(3) If an enemy acted against “critical state or military facilities” that could disrupt the response of Russian nuclear forces. This suggested to me ANY type of attack, conventional, covert, or otherwise, against Russian nuclear launch and storage facilities, or perhaps a Russian nuclear plant.

(4) If Russia comes under conventional attack that would “threaten the very existence of the state.”

As I understand the doctrinal changes, these are two KEY revisions which extend the circumstances under which Russia can now use nuclear weapons:

(1) When a non-nuclear state, whose “aggression against Russia" is supported "with the participation or support of a nuclear state."

As such, I believe Russia will view those nuclear states supporting a non-nuclear state in its aggression against Russia, as engaging in a 'joint attack,' against Russia.

Can anyone say "Ukraine" and "NATO"?

(2) Russia has now deemed Belarus critical to its national survival and has now apparently extended its nuclear umbrella to include the Lukashenko government, even if the existential threat to Belarus comes from "conventional weapons."

"Shlt or get off the pot," say some clueless blowhards. Keep poking the Bear, ass holes, you'll be shlting your pants before you get to your pot.

Reference: https://www.rt.com/russia/604683-put...rine-changes/?

[Lee Chowaniec]

Kamalaomics: Opportunity Economy? Little revealed in MSNBC interview.

Scary stuff!

Jesse Waters: Kamala just sank her own campaign

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...2ff5d1315&ei=9

[Lee Chowaniec]

Supporters urge Hochul to sign climate change bill into law
Government Politics

NYS Governor Kathy Hochul has until the end of this year to either veto or sign a climate change bill into law that would force fossil fuel companies to pay for damages caused by climate change and could bring an estimated $71 million annually to Western New York communities. In total, the act would require the fossil fuel companies to pay a total of $3 billion every year for 25 years.

A renewed push from politicians, community environmental organizers and union leaders aims to convince Gov. Kathy Hochul to sign what some say could be the most impactful climate change bill to cross her desk this year. The Climate Change Superfund Act passed the State Senate and Assembly and now awaits the governor’s signature or veto.

“How about the people who created the problem pay for it? I think that’s fair,” said Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes during a recent news conference. “If we want to leave this environment, this country, our city, our communities in a condition where the children who we’re educating right now can live healthy, clean, safe lives, then we have to do something now.”

The Business Council of New York State has opposed the bill, saying it “implies that the fossil fuel industry is solely responsible for climate change, and that the industry was the prime beneficiary of society’s widespread use of fossil fuels in housing, transportation, production feedstocks and for other purposes.”

The Senate voted 43-17 on May 7 to pass it, with Democratic Sen. Sean Ryan of Buffalo voting in favor and three Republicans from Western New York, George Borrello, Patrick Gallivan and Robert Ortt, voting against it.

The Assembly voted 92-49 to pass it on June 7, the day before the Legislature was scheduled to adjourn. The Assembly vote was also split along party lines in Western New York, with six Democrats voting yes and six Republicans voting no.

“Based on decades of research it is now possible to determine with great accuracy the share of greenhouse gases [sic] released into the atmosphere by specific fossil fuel companies over the last 70 years or more, making it possible to assign liability to and require compensation from companies commensurate with their emissions during a given time period,” the bill says.

“This will be paid for by the big oil companies who have been perpetuating environmental racism and injustice for decades,” Sara Schultz, vice chair of the Sierra Club Niagara Group, said during the Sept. 19 news conference. “Don’t let the fossil fuel companies fool you, because this law deals with past environmental damage, these companies won’t be able to pass the cost on to customers.”

“Right now, we’re trying to do this work without the support and without the funding from the people that actually create the problem,” Hogan said. “We’re already [using] taxpayer funding. It’s only fair that the corporations that exacerbated the problem, really created this problem, pitch in – it’s really going to take all of us to fix it.”

Comment

“This will be paid for by the big oil companies who have been perpetuating environmental racism and injustice for decades,” Sara Schultz, vice chair of the Sierra Club Niagara Group, said during the Sept. 19 news conference. “Don’t let the fossil fuel companies fool you, because this law deals with past environmental damage, these companies won’t be able to pass the cost on to customers.” Ya think? The consumer ultimately pays for every added tax, fee, penalty, etc. instated on businesses.

What is next, coming for the public consumers of fossil fuels as polluters as well? Especially those who do not comply with the Green Energy mandates that come into play.

[Lee Chowaniec]

Climate Crisis: Part I

Opinion: Fossil fuels & clean energy: Just like the song, ‘you can’t have one without the other.’

As long as fossil fuel emissions persist at scale, temperatures will keep rising, and the heat and violent weather will keep getting worse. On the flip side, the faster the world builds more clean power to replace fossil fuels, the sooner the planet will stop heating up. Fossil fuels are here to stay – long into the future.

Climate change is real! Mankind will persist despite government’s futile intervention.

Excellent analysis from enlightening reports.

As turmoil worsens worldwide, climate crisis grows harder to fix
New York Times

Global power is fractured. Temperatures have risen to record levels. Bitterness and anxiety are rising in vulnerable countries lashed by deadly heat and floods.
This week, as presidents and prime ministers assemble at the U.N. General Assembly, they confront a vastly different world from the one that existed nearly 10 years ago, when nations rich and poor found a way to rally together around a remarkable global pact.

In that agreement, the 2015 Paris accord, they promised to act and acknowledged a bare truth: Climate change threatens all of us, and we owe it to each other to slow it down. Countries agreed to nudge each other to raise their climate ambitions every few years, and the industrialized nations of the world – which had prospered from the burning of coal, oil and gas – said they would help the rest of the world prosper without burning down the planet.

Turns out, geopolitics can be as unpredictable as the weather.

Three big things have shifted since the climate accord that, together, have sunk the prospects of global climate cooperation to a low point. China has raced ahead of every other country, including the United States, to dominate the global clean-energy supply chain, fueling serious economic and political strains that undermine incentives to cooperate. Rich countries have failed to keep their financial promises to help poor countries shift away from fossil fuels. A widening gyre of war – from Ukraine to the Gaza Strip and now, in Lebanon – has become an impediment to global climate consensus.

Then there's the biggest, most consequential uncertainty of all: the coming U.S. elections.

China's transformation

China is the world's largest producer of solar panels. Also wind turbines. Also batteries for electric vehicles. It manufactures more electric cars, buses and motorcycles than any other country.

It also processes the vast majority of the world's cobalt and lithium, essential components in the batteries that will help electrify everything from trucks to factories to advanced weaponry.

In short, it holds the keys to the treasure chest of the renewable-energy transition, even as, paradoxically, it burns more coal than any other country. That makes China the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases at the moment, while the United States is the biggest emitter in history.

China's dominance of clean-energy goods has sparked a protectionist backlash few would have expected when the Paris accord was signed in 2015 – with the U.S. and China as two of its most important backers. Today, however, Western countries, fearing that they will fall even further behind, have imposed nearly insurmountable tariffs on China's electric vehicles. And they have sought to eliminate Chinese-processed metals from their own factories.

That has added a new stumbling block to climate diplomacy between the world's biggest emitters. It's not helped by rising tensions between Washington and Beijing. The two sides are still talking, but they're not agreeing on much. The global energy transition is getting bogged down as they quarrel.

"There's no question that geopolitics are more challenging than they were when the Paris Agreement was struck," said Ani Dasgupta, president of the World Resources Institute.

But he took pains to note that many countries continue to push the world's powerful to come together and with some success. "The biggest change, and a welcome one, we have seen since Paris is the rise of climate leadership from the Global South," he said, referring to low-income nations that often feel disproportionate effects from global warming.

Money problem

Money has bedeviled climate diplomacy for decades. There has been intense disagreement over who should pay and how much.

A handful of countries – the United States, most of Europe, Canada, Australia and Japan – are responsible for most of the greenhouse gas emissions that have caused the planet to heat up over the past century. But each of those countries, in their own way, argues that they alone can't foot the bill for a global fix.

They also argue that China in particular, now the world's second-biggest economy and its biggest polluter, should also pony up money to aid low-income countries.
The one explicit acknowledgment of this obligation has been the creation of a formal Loss and Damage Fund to help poor countries cope with climate disasters made worse by the greenhouse gases emitted by wealthy nations. A little more than $700 million has been pledged, a drop in the bucket of what it costs even one country to recover from one climate disaster. (The European Commission allocated $10 billion this week to help Central European countries respond to the latest floods.)

Recently, a few courts have begun to take up cases that strive to penalize the industry or require fossil fuel companies to help pay the cost of fighting climate change. But even if the plaintiffs were to prevail, any decisions would likely be years in the future.

Meanwhile, the costs of climate change have piled up for low-income countries, many of which are also heavily indebted. On average, African nations are losing 5% of their economies because of floods, droughts and heat, according to the World Meteorological Organization. Many are spending up to a 10th of their budgets managing extreme weather disasters.

Shifting alliances

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has lifted energy security to the top of the agenda for big world powers. That has both strengthened the argument to shift to renewable energy – but also shifted the focus of many world leaders from emphasizing a transition away from oil and gas to making sure they have enough of it for their energy needs.

It has also buoyed the fortunes of oil and gas producers worldwide. At the same time, food and fuel costs have risen worldwide, and with it, hunger.

If the war in Ukraine scrambled the economics of the energy transition, then the war in Gaza scrambled its politics, driving up distrust and realigning geopolitical allegiances. Western hegemony over global trade, including fossil fuels, has faded.

Both China and India, as well as Turkey and Iran, two sets of rivals, have made deft energy deals with Russian President Vladimir Putin, allowing Russian oil and gas to enjoy new markets as Europe weans itself from Russian energy. The United States has, in turn, sought to counter that new dynamic by exporting more of its own oil and gas than ever.

This week at the United Nations, there are likely to be some pointed reminders to world leaders, particularly from the 20 largest economies, known as the G20, to rally around climate action.

The U.N.'s top climate official, Simon Stiell, whose grandmother's home on the Caribbean Island of Grenada was destroyed by Hurricane Beryl earlier this year, said as much in a recent speech. "It would be entirely incorrect for any world leader, especially in the G20, to think, 'Although this is all incredibly sad, ultimately it's not my problem,'" he said.

The wildest wild card in all of this is what happens in November, when Americans go to the polls.
In his first term as president, Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the global climate accord. Should he return to the White House, he has promised to do so again.

As Tim Benton, a fellow at Chatham House, a London-based research organization, wrote recently, "A new Trump administration promises only – directly and indirectly – to frustrate ambitious, effective climate policies in the U.S. and abroad."

[Lee Chowaniec]

Climate Crisis: Part II

FYI

As planet keeps getting hotter the world must confront new reality.

In recent years, the rapid deployment of renewable energy and a shift away from the dirtiest fossil fuels have given even grizzled climate activists cause for some measure of hope.

The most extreme projections about temperature rise on planet Earth were replaced by less apocalyptic forecasts, and while the world wasn't shifting away from fossil fuels nearly fast enough, there appeared to be a realistic pathway to significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the decades ahead.

Yet now, at the very moment the world seems to be making real progress in the fight against global warming, the scale of the problem seems to be getting even bigger.

Electricity demand is spiking, thanks to artificial intelligence and a new generation of energy-hungry data centers. Overall energy consumption keeps climbing as a new middle class rises in the developing world. And a large-scale phaseout of planet-warming emissions is being hampered by short-term politics, global conflict and ossified financial markets.

These are just some of the themes discussed Wednesday at the Climate Forward conference hosted by the New York Times. Interviewees included primatologist Jane Goodall, Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan and more.

By 2050, global demand for electricity is expected to rise by as much as 75%, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Much of that demand will come from rapidly developing nations in Africa and Southeast Asia. But even in the United States, energy consumption is soaring after remaining relatively flat for 15 years.

"Everyone is assuming that wealthy countries will taper their energy demand on a certain timeline," said Raj Shah, president of the Rockefeller Foundation, a nonprofit group that is working on expanding clean energy access in poor countries. "But that assumption will be blown out of the water by whatever the next new
waves of technology are."

It's true that a growing share of the world's power will come from clean sources, including solar panels and wind turbines. Last year alone, nearly 86% of the new power generation built worldwide came from clean sources, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency.

But with the global population expected to rise by as much as 1.7 billion in the next 25 years and overall energy demand rising in tandem, the gains in solar and wind may not be enough to rapidly displace dirty forms of power such as oil, gas and coal. Rather than taking the place of fossil fuels, renewable energy sources are simply helping meet the additional demand.

Indeed, both the production and the use of oil and gas are still booming worldwide, and planet-warming emissions are still on the rise.

Major economies such as India and China continue to build new coal plants. The United States is currently the world's biggest supplier of natural gas and is constructing new gas power plants. The U.S. is also producing record amounts of oil. And countries in the Middle East are proceeding with plans to pump oil for many decades to come.

What's more, while there are promising emissions-free alternatives to electricity generation, progress is slower in identifying viable replacements for things like aviation fuel, shipping fuel, concrete, plastics and more.

The perils of these choices and a warming planet are already clear. Global average temperatures have been 1.5 degrees Celsius higher than preindustrial levels for most of the past year, exceeding a threshold that scientists had long warned of crossing. The result: Last year was the hottest on record, with withering heat waves, deadly droughts and extreme weather around the globe.

As long as fossil fuel emissions persist at scale, temperatures will keep rising, and the heat and violent weather will keep getting worse. On the flip side, the faster the world builds more clean power to replace fossil fuels, the sooner the planet will stop heating up.

Those simple truths make plain the global stakes of the energy transition. And with most of the new energy demand expected to come from the developing world, it is in some of the poorest countries on Earth that the battle to keep global warming at bay will be won or lost.

If the next billion people to gain access to reliable electricity in Africa and Asia get it from diesel generators and natural gas plants, emissions from those regions will likely keep rising for many decades to come – and that will warm the planet as a whole.

Economics remain an impediment to large-scale change worldwide.

Surging global demand for energy has made the United States the world's biggest exporter of liquefied natural gas, and pressures to keep domestic energy prices low have led to record oil production. Investors discourage large energy companies from investing in renewable projects. And with interest rates high over the past two years, it has become exceedingly difficult to build some well-established clean power projects, especially offshore wind.

Given all that, some utilities across the United States are backtracking on their plans to go green.

Government incentives, including the Inflation Reduction Act, have spurred a new round of investments in renewable energy and battery projects. The tax credits included in that law, the biggest ever federal investment to combat climate change, have helped create hundreds of thousands of new jobs and spark a domestic
manufacturing boom.

But even with those gains, it remains difficult to get big new clean power plants online, in large measure because the U.S. grid is antiquated and underdeveloped.

While there is no doubt that the global population is soaring, energy use is spiking, and fossil fuels are sticking around, some energy analysts still predict a potentially bright future.

"Forecasts show continued emissions that are not necessarily consistent with climate goals," said Mark Dyson, managing director at RMI, a nonprofit group that works with companies to reduce their emissions. "But forecasts change."

Dyson, who studies long-term energy demand, said that for decades, officials have overestimated energy demand and underestimated the growth of renewables and gains in efficiency.

Indeed, in the projections for soaring electricity demand, Dyson sees signs of progress. That's exactly what's to be expected as electric vehicles replace gasoline-powered cars and electric heating replaces oil and gas heating. And with the Federal Reserve cutting interest rates, the cost of capital should fall, making some clean energy projects more affordable.

Data centers, while energy hogs, are getting more efficient, as are electric vehicles, new buildings and many other electrified staples of modern life. A flurry of innovation is underway that could soon provide new, affordable ways to reduce emissions, produce energy and power society.

Moving forward may well mean advances in the deployment of clean power. It may even mean breakthroughs in new forms of power.

But as the catastrophic effects of climate change continue to mount, human ingenuity will have to do much more than get better at delivering energy. It will also have to help humans adapt to life on a hotter planet.

[Lee Chowaniec]

White House mum amid outrage over data showing how many illegal immigrant criminals are free in US.

We are all tired of being lied to, gaslighted, misinformed, disinformed, whatever by both political presidentil campaigns and their media lackeys on just about everything. While Democrats assure us we are no less safe and secure with the millions of illegal migrants entering our country under the Biden-Harris administration and non-citizens living in the U.S., recent data presents a clearer picture where we stand.

The White House has yet to comment on new data released to lawmakers showing the number of illegal immigrants with convictions for sex offenses and homicide convictions and who are not in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention.

The agency provided data to Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, about national data for illegal immigrants with criminal charges or convictions. The data, as of July 2024, is broken down by those in detention, and those who are not in detention — known as the non-detained docket. The non-detained docket includes noncitizens who have final orders of removal or are going through removal proceedings but are not detained in ICE custody.

There are currently more than 7.4 million people on that docket, up from around 3.7 million when former President Trump left office. Tens of thousands of illegal immigrants with sexual assault and murder convictions roaming U.S. streets!

The data says that, among those not in detention, there are currently 425,431 convicted criminals and 222,141 with pending criminal charges. The data does not reveal how many of those criminals are recent arrivals.

"As of July 21, 2024, there were 662,566 noncitizens with criminal histories on ICE’s national docket — 13,099 criminally convicted MURDER[ER]S!" Gonzales said in a statement. "Americans deserve to be SAFE in our own communities."

In the latest data, the convicted criminals include 62,231 convicted of assault, 14,301 convicted of burglary, 56,533 with drug convictions and 13,099 convicted of homicide. An additional 2,521 have kidnapping convictions and 15,811 have sexual assault convictions. There are an additional 1,845 with pending homicide charges, 42,915 with assault charges, 3,266 with burglary charges and 4,250 with assault charges.

The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the data and whether it had been aware of the numbers. Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign also did not comment. The news sparked outrage from Republicans, who tied the numbers to the policies of the Biden administration and those sanctuary jurisdictions who refuse to co-operate with ICE.

Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green said the release of illegal immigrants into the U.S. "defies all common sense." "This is madness. It is something no civilized, well-functioning society should tolerate," he said. House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green (R) linked the alarming statistics directly to policies of the Biden-Harris administration. "Under President Biden and his ‘border czar,’ Vice President Harris, DHS law enforcement has been directed to mass-release illegal aliens whom they know have criminal convictions or are facing charges for serious crimes — and these dangerous, destructive individuals are making their way into every city and state in this country," Green said to Fox News Digital

In the letter to Gonzalez, ICE took aim at so-called "sanctuary" cities, which refuse to cooperate with federal law enforcement in deporting illegal immigrant criminals.

[Lee Chowaniec]

Trump or Harris: No thank you!

This close to the election I did not believe there could possibly be as many voters as I considering the possibility of not voting in the presidential election – especially as a resident in a staunch blue state.

Disenchanted with both candidates, seeing them equally disingenuous, untrustworthy, and incapable of uniting this country and keeping it globally safe and secure, along with an equally inept, biased media all too willing to present manipulated data and polls that cast everyone committed in their votes, I found the following report by Populace CEO Todd Rose interesting and intriguing.

Rose explains his Social Pressure Index, which found a staggering 61% of Americans admitted to self-silencing their true beliefs. One of the largest independent think tanks this report focuses on the lying that is taking place and how voters really feel about the direction this country is really taking and its impact on their lives.

Most Americans outright lying about polarizing political opinions

https://www.foxnews.com/video/6362602141112

We are so screwed!

[Lee Chowaniec]

Weekend News

While most voters are engrossed in trying to determine which presidential candidate to hate more, trust less, whether they are better off today than 4 years ago, they should be equally concerned about other news that adversely impacts their democracy, freedoms, and security – both domestic and foreign.

Biden- Harris administration Accomplishments

Democrats and the leftwing media believe Biden’s record should be viewed more as an asset than a liability. Inflation has been tamed. Illegal immigration has stabilized. Violent crime is down. Harris has been part of a highly successful administration. In theory it is a perfect recipe for electoral success. Yet it is a gift that the Democratic nominee, Kamala Harris, seems reluctant to accept. Far from embracing her role in Biden’s White House, the 59-year-old is presenting herself as a change agent who will “turn the page” and offer “a new way forward”.

Everything’s getting better we are being told yet the American public thinks we’re in a recession. In this climate, Harris appears to have concluded that, whatever the headline economic figures say, people are not feeling it. She has acknowledged many families are struggling with the cost of living, including the price of groceries and the dream of buying a home.

You can tell American families things are better but, unless they’re feeling it, it won’t help the Democrats in November. There’s a disconnect between voter impression of the economy and personal voter feelings about the economy. When it comes to the economy people believe their own eyes and they will make their judgments on that basis. That’s especially true for immigration because there’s nothing that President Biden and VP Harris did eight months ago that he couldn’t have done four years ago.

Online censorship

Online censorship under the guise of “disinformation” continues to be a hot button issue four years after Twitter and Facebook censored the New York Post‘s reporting on the contents of Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop archive, leading up to the 2020 presidential election. The ability for government agencies to coordinate with social-media platforms was the subject of the Murthy v. Missouri Supreme Court case. The justices threw out the case in June for lack of standing, but the plaintiffs are trying to resume the litigation in lower courts.

Former secretary of state John Kerry recently spoke at a World Economic Forum panel and lamented the First Amendment for being a roadblock to countering online “misinformation” and “disinformation” about climate change.

Responding to an audience question about “climate misinformation,” Kerry described how social media make it difficult to form consensus and said the First Amendment makes it difficult to weed out “disinformation” online. “Our First Amendment stands as a major block to the ability to be able to hammer it out of existence,” Kerry said. The right people need to be elected to office.

Is this but another attempt by the Democrats to control free speech and the press? No thanks!

Middle East Violence

The U.S. is further beefing up its military presence in the Middle East, sending in additional troops and putting others on standby while keeping an aircraft carrier on station as the region prepares for more violence. The moves come after Israeli forces killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon on Friday, in a strike that threatens to plunge the region into a wider war.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Sunday ordered the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and its attached destroyers to remain in the region, just a month after rerouting them to the Middle East while they were on a planned deployment to the Pacific. The directive comes days after the USS Harry S. Truman carrier strike group left its home port in Virginia for a scheduled cruise, potentially creating a two-carrier presence in the Middle East for the second time since the summer.

The Pentagon also announced that the U.S. will be sending additional “air-support capabilities in the coming days,” and that the USS Wasp Amphibious Ready Group will remain in the eastern Mediterranean. The group includes the amphibious ships USS New York and USS Oak Hill, along with thousands of Marines capable of performing civilian evacuations from Lebanon if necessary. The Wasp, which can launch small boats ashore, is also loaded with Marine-flown F-35B fighter planes, giving military planners an extra aerial punch if needed.

The Pentagon also announced that the U.S. will be sending additional “air-support capabilities in the coming days,” and that the USS Wasp Amphibious Ready Group will remain in the eastern Mediterranean. The group includes the amphibious ships USS New York and USS Oak Hill, along with thousands of Marines capable of performing civilian evacuations from Lebanon if necessary. The Wasp, which can launch small boats ashore, is also loaded with Marine-flown F-35B fighter planes, giving military planners an extra aerial punch if needed.

We are in crisis and the adults have left the room.

[Lee Chowaniec]

CBS’ Vance-Walz debate: 3 on 1 again?

Hosting the vice-presidential debate between Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, and Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, will be in the spotlight again with concerns “CBS Evening News” anchor Norah O'Donnell and "Face the Nation" moderator Margaret Brennan, will be as partisan as ABC was the first presidential debate between former President Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.

CBS’s past coverage suggests Vance, like Trump, may enter a one-against-three political showdown.

CBS News' liberal bias was best displayed in 2020 when Trump famously sparred with "60 Minutes" veteran Lesley Stahl over the Hunter Biden laptop scandal just days before the election. When Trump insisted at the time that then-candidate Joe Biden was in the midst of a scandal, Stahl replied he was not. Trump replied’ "Of course he is, Lesley.”

"No, c'mon," Stahl continued to reject the president's claim, before lecturing him, "This is '60 Minutes' and we can't put on things that we can't verify." CBS News eventually went on and verified the infamous laptop in 2022.

In September 2023, CBS News was caught editing an unflattering exchange Harris had with Brennan during an interview.

Both Brennan and O'Donnell appeared to chastise Trump following July's assassination attempt, suggesting his own rhetoric led to the fatal shooting in Butler, PA.

In what might be a preview of what to expect at Tuesday's debate, Brennan got testy with Vance during his late June appearance on "Face the Nation." He was yet to be tapped as Trump's running mate. Vance took a swipe at the media for not fact-checking Biden following the June 27 presidential debate, something Brennan took immediate offense to.

CBS biased? If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck…

It is alleged that Walz is nervous. He has good reason to be.

[WNYresident]

Over 1,330,000 views for this thread. You guys need to get a life Just joking!